A federal judge on Tuesday rejected Sam Bankman-Fried's bid to throw out most of the U.S. government's criminal case accusing the FTX cryptocurrency exchange founder of orchestrating a multibillion-dollar fraud, Reuters reported. The decision by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan paves the way for an Oct. 2 trial of Bankman-Fried, a 31-year-old former billionaire. Prosecutors accused Bankman-Fried of stealing billions of dollars in FTX customer funds to plug losses at his Alameda Research hedge fund. They also accused Bankman-Fried of misleading investors and lenders, and contributing illegally to U.S. political campaigns in the names of colleagues. Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty and denied stealing funds, while acknowledging that FTX had inadequate risk management.
